Ecological effects of environmental change: from the molecular to the globalEcological effects of environmental change: from the molecular to the global

Natural and Anthropogenic environmental changes impact on biological systems at all levels from molecular processes within individuals through to large scale alterations in the global ecosystem. Our research covers all these scales; deals with plants, animals and micro-organisms; and examines the ecology of terrestrial, freshwater and marine systems. It involves work both on fundamental ecological principles, and on applied and management questions. Our activities focus in two broad areas:

Ecological effects of climate change, land use change, pollution and overexploitation and resulting impacts on the ecosystem services that the biosphere provides. This includes large scale ecosystem effects and biodiversity loss in the Amazon, east and central Asia, the Mediterranean and the UK; community level effects using traditional monitoring, biological records and molecular methods; species level effects on a range of vertebrates, invertebrates, phytoplankton and crops; and evolutionary responses to environmental change in animals, plants and pathogens.

Biological perspectives on the earth’s biogeochemistry, including cycling of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur; the molecular biology of key biochemical processes and the population and community dynamics of the microorganisms responsible. Particular areas of interest are marine primary production and carbon cycling; methane oxidation; production of DMS, isoprene and other trace gases and the use of molecular tools to understand the functioning of microbial communities. This work is often collaborative with environmental chemists and oceanographers in COAS [cross link to COAS page],